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My 1yr. old dogs keep jumping on our kithcen counters...there is nothing on the counters!One day they jumped on the counter while I was makink dinner,
My 1yr. old dogs keep jumping on our kithcen counters...there is nothing on the counters!One day they jumped on the counter while I was makink dinner,they knocked all the glass dishes on the floor.It was a disater!!!!HELP!!!
Answer:
Counter surfing is a self-rewarding behavior and can be one of the most difficult things to un-train. If a dog is reinforced occasionally when she jumps on the counter, she will continue to jump to see if there is something good on the counter.
Management is the key to preventing and stopping counter surfing. Counter surfing must never be rewarding. If the dog occasionally wins and locates something yummy on the counter, she will continue to look. And that occasional win will make the behavior even harder to eliminate. An occasional win like that causes something called an extinction burst. It will actually cause your dog to jump on the counters more frequently. This is similar to a person at a slot machine. Most of the time, nothing comes up on the slot machine. But that occasional cherry that causes the person to “win” makes it worth it to keep trying.
If you don’t have a counter surfer, manage your dog around counters by, for example, keeping your puppy tethered to you or crating your puppy when you can’t monitor her actions.
If your dog has previously been successful obtaining an item from the counter such that you now have a counter surfer, teach her that the counters are no longer EVER interesting. The first thing is to clean off the counters. Put everything fun away. And consider that from your dog’s perspective. You may not view a wooden spoon as fun, but she’ll think it’s amazing.
There are two situations in which dogs get on the counters … when we are watching and when we aren’t watching. These are handled differently.
In the case where you are in the room and watching your dog, you need to be able to tell your dog to leave things alone. First, teach your dog a “Leave It” command such that you can place something intentionally in front of your dog and not have your dog EVER touch it. And then, proof your dog. Proofing your dog means testing your dog SLOWLY. It does NOT mean putting a roast beef on the counter the first day of training and telling your dog to Leave It. You must SLOWLY increase the value of the item from your dog’s perspective.
To train a Leave It, put a pile of treats in your hand. Make a fist with the treat in your hand and place it on the ground. As soon as your dog pays attention to your fist, tell the dog to “leave it”. When the dog is not touching your fist (no teeth, no tongue, no paws, no touch at all), praise and treat. Continue this exercise until the dog looks away immediately when you say “leave it”. Next, put the treat on the floor in front of the dog and place your fingers over it like a tent. As soon as your dog pays attention to the treat, tell the dog to “leave it”. When the dog is not touching your fingers (no teeth, no tongue, no paws, no touch at all), praise and treat. Continue this exercise until the dog looks away immediately when you say “leave it”. Then put the treat on the floor in front of the dog. As soon as your dog pays attention to the treat, tell the dog to “leave it”. Be ready to cover the treat if the dog goes for it. Continue this exercise until the dog looks away immediately when you say “leave it”. Continue this exercise by tossing the treat to the ground. Start by tossing the treat at a distance from the dog so you have more time to get to it before the dog gets it. Then slowly, toss the treat closer and closer to the dog. Once the dog is reliable with the above steps, LEAVE IT can begin to be applied to other things that your dog is focusing on.
As mentioned previously, your dog should not have access to the counters when you are not monitoring her. However, should it be necessary for some reason, the counter must not be enticing to her even when you are not available to tell her to “Leave It”. In this case, the “event” needs to happen without you in the room. There are a variety of things that can be done to accomplish this. Take a few soda cans and put some pennies in them and then duct tape them shut. Put them along the edge of the counters. When the dog jumps on the counter, the soda cans will fall and make a loud noise. As long as this consistently happens, the dog will learn that jumping on the counters delivers an annoying racket. You can put some food on the counter for the dog to sample that contains things like cayenne pepper or that is sprayed with bitter apple. Aluminum foil is something that most dogs don’t like to feel on their paws. You can try putting aluminum foil along the edges of the counters. Whenever the dog jumps up, she will feel something uncomfortable. You’ll probably have to replace the aluminum foil a lot in the beginning. You can also purchase a outdoor carpet runner. You need to have the kind that has nubs underneath to grab on to outside surfaces. Place it along the counter’s edge nub side up. This works the same as aluminum foil but is considerably sturdier.
Bottom line, you must be consistent. She must NEVER successfully find something on the counter that is interesting to her.
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